Excuse me if I ramble on, but I am in San Diego for work with nothing better to do right now.
I got back home Saturday to Jacksonville from another great gathering. Many thanks to Larry again for a great job. Also thanks to Bob Glidden for his hospitality and work as the camp master. The M1 was great to fly. I have about 80 hours on it now and the odometer on my GPS is showing that I have flown it nearly 10,000 miles. I did most of my flying to the gathering and back at 9,500' and 145 knots. I left Thursday while the outer bands of Ophelia were still over Jacksonville. I never expected to make it out, but I needed to do some work on the plane and I had everything packed just in case. I got to the airport in the morning and worked for a few hours before I had all the must finish items done. There were a few other minor things I wanted to work on when I saw a small blue hole in the overcast layer so I put it all back together and jumped in. Winds were something like 17 and gusting to 24. I got up and found that there was a broken layer about 1,500', one around 2,000', and a third around 2,700'. The holes were big enough that I could get on top and still stay legal. The tops of the clouds were 4,500' and it was perfectly smooth and clear above there. I seem to be having bad luck with fuel lately. I have 15 gallons and that gets me 2 hours and 20 minutes. On the way there I was going to land and get fuel on an airport that was on the sectional, but I got over the airport and saw that it was closed down with big yellow Xs on the runway. Instead of going on to the next airport that was a little further I diverted to another closer airport. I got there and found one hangar and no services or people at all. I have read too many accident reports where people pass an airport and continue on to a crash so I landed there. Luckilly, there were two people walking near there that gave me a ride to the nearest gas station 15 miles away to get a can of 93 octane. On the way home I decided to make an early fuel stop at a fairly good sized airport, but nobody was home. It had a good sized aviation college, but no one there on the weekends. Since I stopped early I was able to take back off and fly to another airport 15 miles away that had a self serve pump. Of course all of these airports were in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone coverage. Anyway, I made it home the 700 and something miles in about 5 hours and can't wait until next year. Brian Kraut Engineering Alternatives, Inc. www.engalt.com
